William Ross' "Tin Cup" does overflow! The music offers country & western,
blues ('Double Bogey Blues,' arranged by Ross), no holds barred orchestral,
and Ross still has room to throw the audience a couple of fitting surprises.
It is a distinctive and refined share of film music; it is a delightfully
above-average score to hear, especially from a composer relatively close
to the beginning of his game. Most impressive are the symphonic flourishes
-- at times overly dramatic (I am thinking, Is this golf, or the parting
of the Red Sea?), but strengthened with confident grace, bold tonality, and
extremely solid orchestration. And as with any romantic score -- in this
case, both for love of a woman and love of a game -- there is a need for
distinguished melodies. There is, appropriately enough, a pair of them here:
a slick, free and easy tune for Tin Cup, and the previously mentioned fanfare
for the grace of golf. The presentation is a small flaw... The orchestra's
performance is surprisingly rough... There are several harshly played notes,
and the finale on Varese Sarabande's "Hollywood 96" album received a more
pleasant and charismatic reading. However, it gets the point across, and
Mr. Ross continues to establish himself as an influential creative presence
("The Amazing Panda Adventure" and "My Fellow Americans" are proficient scores,
as well). "Tin Cup" is not tin-pot.

Reviewer

Jeffrey Wheeler

Promotional Albums offer lesser celebrated film composers the opportunity
to bring their work (often of good quality but unsung [if you will forgive
the pun]) to the attention of prospective producers who might be interested
in contracting them for film scoring assignments. Another market opportunity
is for short films, trailers, commercials, and other theatre and TV projects
where producers with limited budgets might be interested in buying material
"off the shelf." Lastly, film music buffs who have admired the scores but
hitherto have never had an opportunity of acquiring the music now have an
opportunity of buying scores they have admired. For instance anybody who
liked Hummie Mann's music for Mel Brook's farce, Dracula, Dead and Loving
It (with Leslie Nielsen) can now buy it from specialist sellers such as: